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2016 Candidates Hit Soapbox at Iowa State Fair; Carson Jumps to Second in Iowa GOP Poll; ISIS Suspected of Using Chemical Weapons; Chemical Specialists on Scene of China Explosions; Children Hurt when Bus Crashes into Liquor Store; Report Outlines ISIS Culture of Sex Slavery. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired August 14, 2015 - 06:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Big weekend here at the Iowa State Fair.

[05:58:52] MARTIN O'MALLEY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There's not a doubt in my mind that people are looking for a new leader.

CARLY FIORINA (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We have to challenge the status quo.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is Joe Biden running?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He has that authenticity that is really being craved.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's the one that can bring the country together and move us forward.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think I would match up very well against Biden.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Is ISIS using chemical weapons?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a weapon of fear. And that has an enormous effect on the battlefield.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The terror group uses sex slavery as a recruiting tool.

The militant group justifies its actions.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A horrifying scene for parents and onlookers alike.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One kid was screaming. And another kid was bleeding from his mouth.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They were just, like, shocked.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota and Michaela Pereira.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Friday, August 14, 6 a.m. in the east.

Battle lines are being drawn. The Biden talk is getting real enough that people are attacking him. People named Trump. And Ben Carson is making the case for banning abortion while admitting that he used fetal tissue for research. Heavy-duty stuff on what's supposed to be a playful weekend.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Front-runners Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are slated to stop by Saturday. They are avoiding the soap box, though, where candidates can take questions from voters.

This as Hillary gets a big-time endorsement in the Hawkeye State. Lots to get to with CNN political reporter Sara Murray, who is live in Des Moines. Good morning.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Michaela. You are right. Hillary Clinton picking up a key endorsement as she arrives in Iowa: former Senator Tom Harkin.

Let's get to the good stuff. It's the beginning of the Iowa State Fair. Candidates get to talk to voters and try to avoid getting photos of them taken eating fried stuff on sticks. Let's take a look at what to expect.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And welcome to the first day of the Iowa State Fair. Let me begin with a recommendation: pork chop on a stick.

MURRAY: Bring out the butter cow and abandon your diet. The Iowa State Fair is officially under way. Seventy varieties of foods on sticks and at least 20 varieties of presidential candidates making their pitch to Iowa caucus goers and taking swipes at their rivals.

MIKE HUCKABEE (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This time, 17 Republicans are coming to Iowa to ask for your vote and support in the caucuses. Hillary probably is not going to come. She will e-mail in her appearances.

MURRAY: GOP front-runner Donald Trump heads to the Hawkeye State this weekend. And for second-tier candidates, like Martin O'Malley with just 1 percent support in our CNN/ORC poll in Iowa, it's a chance to lay the groundwork, telling CNN's Jeff Zeleny his moment will come.

O'MALLEY: There's not a doubt in my mind that people are looking for a new leader. Not a doubt in my mind. I think that's true in both parties. And after we get done rolling around in our summer of anger here, people are going to look at the candidates and evaluate which of us is actually that new perspective of a new generation that can actually govern and get things done.

MURRAY: Today, Jeb Bush takes his turn on the soapbox, trying to revive his sagging poll numbers and move beyond another muddled answer on the war in Iraq. This time, he defended his brother, George W. Bush's, policy, saying...

JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'll tell you, though, that taking out Saddam Hussein turned out to be a pretty good deal.

MURRAY: ... adding that, thanks to the troop surge, the mission was accomplished, a strikingly similar comment to his brother's premature "Mission Accomplished" declaration in 2003.

Last night, Bush shrugged off the similarities.

BUSH: There's nothing subliminal about a psychological -- the surge war.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MURRAY: And of course, we're going to be covering all of Jeb Bush's speech today. But the big day is really shaping up to be Saturday. That's when Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are scheduled to appear. And even though they're not supposed to be hitting up the soapbox, they're still going to make the rounds at the fair. And I can bet that they're going to be stopping by the butter cow.

Back to you, Chris.

CUOMO: The butter cow. I like how you say that. Sara, do me a favor. Stick around. Let's bring in CNN national political reporter, as well, Maeve Reston. Maeve -- there you go. That was very good, Maeve. You hopped right in there. Thank you very much.

So we talked GOP yesterday. Let's talk about the Democratic side today. Let's put up the numbers about what's going on, the state of the thing -- state of things in that race.

You've got Hillary Clinton is up there, obviously. Bernie Sanders was the headline yesterday, because he's making a move. What that means about pushing them to the left.

But I want to talk about Joe Biden. We have no secret here that we have been pushing Joe Biden to get into the race, because we want as many voices as possible to help voters make their decision. So he's at 12 percent. Sara, how do you read that? Is that a vote for Joe Biden or is that just a rejection vote of the current field or both?

MURRAY: Well, look, the reality is, Joe Biden isn't some candidate that people don't know. People know who Joe Biden is. He's our sitting vice president. And the fact that he's already at 12 percent without even saying he would get into the race, I think that's more than just a protest vote.

And if you dig into these numbers a little further, there are some other encouraging signs in the polls for Joe Biden. It's possible, for instance, he could do better on making voters feel like he understands their problems and their concerns than someone like Hillary Clinton. So I think there are a lot of promising tidbits floating out there for old Joe. CUOMO: All right, Maeve. There are two big points of pushback

when you consider Joe running. One is -- the vice president running, in due respect. One is, can he raise the money? Two is, is he too old? Carl Bernstein said yesterday, what if Joe Biden came out and said, "I'm only going to be a one-term president." Would that take the age out of it? Is that a realistic strategic move?

MAEVE RESTON, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I don't know if age is going to be an issue. I mean, let's think about the possibility of Joe Biden debating Donald Trump. That would be amazing.

But age is always kind of a consideration that voters have as they think about it. I think the more that candidates talk about age, as we saw with John McCain, like the work that is for them, we have been hearing -- I have been hearing from Democratic sources that he really is considering this very seriously, talking to people.

And obviously, the lack of enthusiasm for Hillary at this point is, you know, giving him a lot of juice to think about this and really consider jumping into the race.

[06:05:09] CUOMO: You know you're not real, Sara, until Donald Trump takes a swipe at you. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I think I'd match up great. I'm a job producer. I've had a great record. I haven't been involved in plagiarism. I think I would match up very well against Biden.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Donald Trump taking it back to law school, bringing up that Joe Biden got hooked for plagiarism then. What does this mean, Sara?

MURRAY: Well, it means that Donald Trump looks at Joe Biden as a potential threat. Remember, this is a candidate, Trump, who says he only attacks when he's being attacked. And last I checked, I don't think Biden has been out there taking any swipes at Donald Trump. So Trump is already going on the offensive. And look, if the worst thing he can say about Biden right now is talking about some old accusations from law school, I think that puts Biden in a pretty good position.

RESTON: And Biden is so good at talking to that blue-collar voter. That's why Obama brought him onto the ticket. So you have to wonder whether or not Biden has kind of a window here to go after some of those same voters that have been drawn to Trump, who like plain speaking, who don't like the politician. He really could get in that space, as well.

CUOMO: Yes, we're putting up numbers right now, Maeve. Which Democratic candidate best understands the problems facing people like you? Biden at 12 percent there. It's interesting. You know, Hillary comes down on that, but Joe's numbers are the same. Bernie is higher as well.

All right. Now, let me try you on this. Ben Carson is favored by many in the GOP because he is seen as a pure conservative. But he got into a little bit of a sticky wicket yesterday about what his abortion policy is. Let's play some sound.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why did you change your decision about whether to use fetal tissue or not?

DR. BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: To not use the tissue that is in the tissue bank, regardless of where it comes from, would be foolish.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But so...

CARSON: Why would anybody...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Would you ban this now, if you're saying that it's not essential?

CARSON: That's a very different thing from killing babies, manipulating them, taking their tissues, selling them. That's a very different thing. To try to equate those two things is absolutely ridiculous.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: All right. That's an audio interview. Let me get a take from both of you on this. Is it ridiculous to equate using fetal tissue for research, which is the whole reason that they do it, and say there's no equation between that and the process by which that tissue becomes available -- Maeve?

RESTON: Well, I mean, I think that this is an issue that is going to come down to each individual voter, how strongly they feel about these kinds of issues, whether they agree with the points that Dr. Carson was making.

He obviously can talk about this issue in a very different way than other candidates. You know, there are a lot of things that go on in the world of medicine that the average person doesn't understand.

And honestly, like, when you talk to people out there, just like you said. They really do see him as ideologically pure candidate, the people that support him. And I don't really think that, over the long run, that this will -- will do much to dampen his support, you know? And he's certainly got a strong core of people around him.

CUOMO: You know, just, you know, to keep it out of -- Sara, to keep it out of the realm of brain surgery and science, you know, if you are against something, but you are doing that thing -- I'm not saying that he's aborting fetuses, but he's using the tissue -- is that an inconsistency? MURRAY: Yes, it's sort of being right by the letter of the law

and violating the spirit of it. If you are opposed to these things, and you're still using fetal tissue in research, it kind of undermines the leg you have to stand on.

But that said, I have to agree with Maeve. This is pretty far in the weeds that it's hard to imagine that, unless you are a voter and this is your No. 1 top issue, it's hard to believe that this is going to move a lot of people.

I think most people sort of want to hear, "OK, we want to defund Planned Parenthood. We don't want to let them have any money for abortion" and then sort of move on from there. The reality is, people kind of like the spirit of what you're talking about, more so than the actual detail.

CUOMO: Sara, Maeve, thank you for making us smarter here on NEW DAY. Be careful about those corn dogs. I had one go bad on me once out there.

All right. And just to the point, another big poll number you haven't been hearing about: 66 percent of people in Iowa haven't made up their mind yet. So it's early there, as well.

Now, somebody who has made up his mind in a very provocative way is Jesse Ventura. You know him, the former governor of Minnesota, WWE great actor. He has an announcement of his own to make. What is it? Keep it here. And, you want to keep up to date on political news -- of course, you do -- you can just go to CNNPolitics.com -- Mick.

PEREIRA: Not going to go one-on-one with the butter cow at the Iowa State Fair?

CUOMO: I've gone one-on-one, and I've paid the price.

PEREIRA: I'm sure you have.

All right. Some more news for you now. We are learning a disturbing new development this morning in the war on ISIS.

Pentagon officials investigating now credible reports that ISIS fighters are using chemical weapons against Kurdish forces in Iraq, specifically mustard gas.

[06:10:06] The latest now from CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr.

Barbara, good morning.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Michaela.

Several parts of the Obama administration now looking at these credible reports ISIS has mustard gas, a chemical weapon, and used it against Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq, perhaps as recently as earlier this week. This is up around Erbil in northern Iraq. So they're still trying to figure out exactly what happened. But

there are people there who have presented with symptoms of mustard gas.

What is it? Mustard gas is not fatal. It's not a weapon of mass death, but it is a weapon of terror. And there's a lot of concern that ISIS has this now. They're still trying to nail down all the facts, all the evidence that they have.

But, you know, if ISIS has mustard gas, one of the big questions is, where did they get it? Was it found in Iraq by their fighters? Is it something they got in Syria, leftover inventory from the Assad regime when the Assad regime was supposed to destroy everything they had.

Or is it possible that ISIS has learned how to make mustard gas on its own? A big question for the U.S. intelligence community and a big question is, of course, what else might ISIS have -- Chris.

CUOMO: The easy part is, would they use it? Of course they would. Where they're getting it, that's what you need to know.

Barbara, thank you very much. Let's go to northern China now, where more than 1,000 firefighters are battling. A big problem is that they're not really sure what's fueling these fires. So, there are now hundreds of chemical specialists at the site, as well.

Will Ripley has been in Tianjin since the story broke. We hear that the government is worried enough about what's happening there, they are going to do inspections at other sites.

Will, what do you know?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. They have a lot of specialists on the ground here, because they're concerned about the safety of people living in the immediate vicinity of this blast zone and perhaps even farther than that.

They say that the air quality is OK right now. They have no idea about the ground water contamination. The sea water is testing OK. But here's the problem. There's rain in the forecast. And some of the chemicals in this factory, which was housing a wide variety of very dangerous toxic chemicals that have a bad reaction with water, and it could cause some very serious, serious danger for the thousands of people who are living in shelters like this.

They're handing out blankets for these folks. There are ten different locations around the city. You can see aid is coming in by the hour. These are fans to try to keep people comfortable in the tents that they are sleeping in.

The force of the explosion, huge. And teams are on the ground to figure out exactly what mix of chemicals detonated and to try to figure out if there's any more danger. The Chinese government promising to crack down if there was any illegal activity that led to this. In fact, some of the owners in the factory remain in custody

right now. We also have some newly-confirmed numbers as far as the death toll: 56 people now confirmed dead. It has gone up. Seven hundred twenty-one people being treated in hospitals, 58 of them in critical condition. Thirty-three are described severely critical condition, and dozens are still missing.

But the urgent humanitarian need for people sleeping in these tents is food and water and clothing and also to make sure that the air they breathe and the water they drink is safe -- Chris.

PEREIRA: I'll take it here. Very concerning, Will. You stay safe and thanks for bringing us the very latest.

We turn to Cuba now where history is being made today. Secretary of State John Kerry will oversee the formal reopening of the U.S. embassy in Havana, the latest effort to ease tensions between the two nations. Just hours from now, the American flag will fly once again over the building after 54 years. The three Marines who took down the flag on orders from the Eisenhower administration, they will be on hand at today's ceremony.

CUOMO: That's an interesting play on it.

The FAA is sounding the alarm about the growing threat posed by drones. The agency says so far this year, there have been 650 close encounters of the drone kind reported by pilots. That's more than double the drone sightings from all of last year. Some of them at altitudes approaching 10,000 feet. And the FAA is facing mounting criticism for not pursuing rogue drone operators more aggressively before a deadly collision with a plane occurs, God forbid.

PEREIRA: Eleven children in New Jersey are recovering this morning after the school bus they were in hit an SUV, then smashed into a liquor store. Surveillance video of the crash would make any parent's heart skip a beat.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PEREIRA (voice-over): A horrifying scene for parents and onlookers alike. Shocking surveillance video from New Jersey captures the dramatic crash of an out-of-control school bus. Watch as the bus, carrying 11 kids, some with special needs, careens through a red light. An oncoming SUV slams its right side, sending the school bus plowing straight into a storefront.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One kid was screaming from his leg. His leg was hurting. And another kid was bleeding from his mouth.

[06:14:59] PEREIRA: This woman immediately running to help those trapped inside.

CHIEF JOHN TIERNEY, IRVINGTON, NEW JERSEY, FIRE DEPARTMENT: There were doors that were wedged shut due to the impact of the crash. So the front door was inoperable. So we moved victims out through windows and through the rear door. PEREIRA: Emergency responders rushing all the passengers,

including the children, ranging in ages from ten to 16, to the hospital.

TIERNEY: Various states of injury, from lacerations to broken bones.

PEREIRA: The bus was on its way to a summer program when the driver says the brakes gave out, causing her to lose control. Police say they're continuing to investigate.

Thankfully, no one was killed. Still, this accident is a frightening scene for parents gearing up to send their children back to school.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PEREIRA: And here's a reality check for parents. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, less than one-half of 1 percent of nationwide car crashes involve a school bus. You kind of need to give that statistic after you see something like that, especially with kids about to go back to school. Don't want to cause undue concern.

CUOMO: They fall into the one is too many deal.

PEREIRA: Absolutely.

CUOMO: Because we're supposed to be doing that better. And that kind of leads you into the whole seatbelt thing. Not all school buses have to have seatbelts and all these weird arguments about it. There's a little bit of a mystery to why it goes wrong.

PEREIRA: I know. It's awful to see. Glad so many people rushed to their aid.

CUOMO: And this time, at least we have the tape to explain it.

PEREIRA: Yes.

CUOMO: It's good to tell people, Mick.

So this year's El Nino is bringing the heat. Take a look at the pictures of past El Ninos to hit California. Tons of devastation follow this type of weather. And now, this one is already the second strongest El Nino pattern that we've seen. Forecasters say it could end up being the most powerful one ever recorded. Why? I have no idea.

But meteorologist Jennifer Gray does, and she's live in the weather center. Explain this to us.

JENNIFER GRAY, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, we're going to break it down. Basically, warmer waters are going to enter the eastern Pacific. In fact, in July, some temperatures in the deep threads (ph) running three and five degrees above normal. Essentially, what is happening, with the trade winds relaxing,

like they typically do in the springtime, they don't return in the summertime during an El Nino year. And so all of the warm water that is normally cooled in the western Pacific is allowed to spill into the eastern Pacific. And that's going to increase convection. It brings much warmer waters off the coast of California. And it brings an increase in thunderstorms in California.

Good news because they're in a drought. Bad news, because when you're dealing with so much rain, a lot of times, you can have extreme flooding with an El Nino year, as well as landslides in California.

These are images of some of the past El Ninos, from the early '80s and the late '90s. But forecasters are projecting 2015 could possibly be the strongest El Nino, ever.

And so what to expect across the U.S.? We are going to see a wet and cooler south. Also means warmer temperatures in the Pacific Northwest, as well as the northeast -- Michaela.

PEREIRA: Yes, we're going to be watching this. And this is a story we'll need to stay on top of. Thanks for giving us the breakdown, Jennifer.

As we've been telling you, reports of ISIS using chemical weapons against Kurdish forces deemed credible by the Pentagon. Now, new reports of unspeakable acts against women, all in the name of Islam. Those stories ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:22:06] PEREIRA: Good to have you back with us here on NEW DAY. The U.S. is looking into credible reports that ISIS fighters have stepped up their tactics, using chemical weapons in an attack in northern Iraq.

And now, "The New York Times" is publishing a disturbing look inside the culture of rape and sexual slavery within ISIS, specifically against Yezidi women and girls who are bought, sold, assaulted. And their attackers defend these actions as their right.

Joining us now, Rukmini Callimachi. She is a foreign correspondent for "The New York Times" who wrote this article. Michael Weiss is here in studio with us. He's a CNN contributor and co-author of "ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror."

Rukmini, this is a tough article that you've had to write. You sat down and interviewed 21 women and girl who have escaped from ISIS. In fact, I want to play a little sound from one of them that you had a chance to speak to.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

GRAPHIC: I can't sleep. I wake up at 3 a.m. because I remember their smell. Their smell makes me brush my teeth more than 10 times a day. It will stay with me forever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: It's too much to bear. As a woman, I think both of us can just imagine the terror and horror this young woman and others have experienced. But what makes this particularly disturbing, Rukmini, is the fact these men are said to have prayed before and after, somehow saying that the Koran gives them the right to perpetrate these atrocities.

RUKMINI CALLIMACHI, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Yes, I think that was the most disturbing aspect of these interviews. One 12-year-old girl that I interviewed explained to me how she tried to reason, you know, with this man and said to him, "You're hurting me. You're hurting me. What you're doing is not right."

And he kept saying to her, "No, the Koran gives me permission to do this to you. And the fact that I'm having sex with you is something that pleases God."

PEREIRA: As young as 12, as young as 11. And I understand from your article that this is an organized sex trade industry, if you will. I mean, they inventory these women and girls?

CALLIMACHI: Highly organized. And it's only -- it's only now that I think that this is coming to light. On August 3rd of last year was when ISIS invaded Sinjar Mountain, which is the traditional home of the Yezidi people. And the women I interviewed, as well as others, said that within the first hour, women and men were immediately separated from each other. Men were taken away and killed. Women were then loaded onto a fleet of waiting buses. So they came with empty buses, because they knew that they were going to take these women away.

They were then taken to a series of, if you will, holding pens, large warehouses where they were held. And the women describe how systematically, in different locations that were dozens of miles apart, the same procedure ensued, which is that the fighters came, wrote down their names, and then asked them a set of very intimate questions, included -- including, "When did you have your last period?" Because one of the Sharia rulings is that you cannot have sex with a female slave who happens to be pregnant.

[06:25:10] PEREIRA: One of the rulings. And they specifically target the Yezidis. Why is that?

CALLIMACHI: The systematic trade of these women seems to be exclusively of the Yezidis. And initially, what scholars told me is there are some limited protections in the Koran and in the Islamic tradition for so-called people of the book, meaning Jews and Christians. They're allowed to pay a tax called ajizia (ph), which them allows them to live as essentially second-class citizens in -- under Muslim rule.

However, what's confusing is that the Islamic State has just released on Twitter a very lengthy manual that "The New York Times" was able to get a copy of and translate. It came out last month. And in that manual, they make very clear that, in fact, Christians are fair game, too.

PEREIRA: Oh, goodness.

CALLIMACHI: And so we don't know -- we know that they are holding hundreds of Christian women. The Assyrian community, the Assyrian Christian community has confirmed this. And we don't know why -- why they haven't been subjected to the same treatment. Of course, we're very happy that that is the case. But so far, it seems to be the Yezidis who are bearing the brunt of this -- of this brutal practice.

PEREIRA: Rukmini, stand by for a second. Michael Weiss is here with us in the studio. And we know, we've seen this kind of behavior used as a recruitment tool, promising wives to young men that they're trying to entice to join the fight. How effective a recruitment tool is it, and is it one of the key factors they're using?

MICHAEL WEISS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I think it's one among many. We, for our book, interviewed a guy called Abdul Azeez, who's a Syrian national, lived in Bahrain. Wasn't even a pious Muslim. He went back to Syria in 2011, joined up with the rebel brigade, then moved over to an Islamist brigade, went back to Bahrain, became radicalized by ISIS, and then made the emigration to the so-called caliphate.

He actually fought at the battle of Mt. Sinjar and told us quite boldly that he took a sex slave. And, you know, the way that ISIS does it is they divvy them up. You know, fighters who have actually partaken in the battle get one of the girls. But then there's a communal pot, so to speak, of women that get shared and passed around.

So the systematic or the methodological structure to this is very -- I mean, it's horrifying as it is interesting. A lot of totalitarian movements throughout history, they're good record keepers, you know? I mean, look at what Stalin or the Nazis did.

PEREIRA: Yes, yes. And you talk about it -- you talk about it as a movement, too. I mean, this is important. They try to claim that this is Islam. But it's bastardization. You say it dates back to early, what, Seventh Century?

WEISS: Yes, well, there are stories in the Koran that speak of sexual slavery. The phrase that keeps recurring in some of these verses is "those whom you possess by your right hand," which is a -- tends to be a reference to women taken in sexual bondage and all the dispensations you're allowed with them.

However, Islam is a faith that has been interpreted, interpreted and modernized to some extent over the last several centuries. Clerics today, by and large, say because they have outlawed slavery, nobody can bring it back, even the most supposed fundamentalist or pious Muslims.

PEREIRA: Right. WEISS: And also, there are other things. I mean, Rukmini was

talking about a woman who is pregnant. According to the strict rules of Sharia going back to the Seventh Century, if she was your sex slave and she got pregnant, you had to liberate her. She became a wife.

So there are all kind of things that ISIS is doing. You know, as fundamentalist as they may be, they're also very improvisational.

PEREIRA: Yes. We can certainly see. Rukmini, we want to tell you our thanks, our appreciation. As horrifying as this is, it's really important so shine a light on what is happening there. Thank you for your tremendous article.

Michael Weiss, thank you so much for your analysis.

WEISS: Sure.

PEREIRA: Chris.

CUOMO: All right. Back to politics. "Feeling the Bern" is the big hashtag. But you know what else is growing? "Ridin' with Biden." The big question, will the V.P., Joe Biden, run. He's on vacation with his family, but his head may be in the game down there in South Carolina. Does he have it in him? What are the obstacles? We have answers ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)